The first paintball projectiles were designed for marking trees when fired from special air guns. During the last ten years, however, the use of paintballs in adult war games, as well as police and military training, has grown into a major industry.
The "games" have generally been played during the daytime hours, to enable the participants to see when an adversary has been "hit". The games are often played in wooded areas where there are natural hiding and stalking places for the participants; but there are now more and more games being set up in relatively small areas, where there are many artificial objects set up to create more possible action in a relatively small space.
Many of the participants feel that there is more anxiety created, and therefore more thrills, in a dimly lit nighttime atmosphere. In addition, nighttime games, with their limited visibility, could be played in smaller, less expensive areas. One basic problem in nighttime games is that the "hits" from the paintballs can not be easily seen.
It is, therefore, one object of this invention to provide a luminescent paintball that would be a direct replacement for the standard types; and would enable the games or training exercises to be carried out under very dimly lit, or even dark conditions.
There are several stringent requirements that must be met by standard paintballs, to make them practical when used against human participants. The capsule projectiles are made of relatively thin plastic or gelatin type material that crushes very easily on impact; to allow quick "splattering" of the contained water washable paint; while causing a minimum impact sting to the targeted participant.
It is also important to keep the size and concentricity of the paintballs as accurate as possible, since the air guns, including rapid fire "automatic" types, are getting more and more sophisticated.
Therefore, it is another object of this invention to provide a method of fabrication and loading of the chemical agents that will also contribute to the accuracy and uniformity of the finished paintball projectiles.
As with most reactive two part chemicals, such as two part epoxy, etc., the two chemical agents that will cause luminescence are not especially sensitive to the exact mixing ratio. A very small amount of one of the chemical agents, if accidentally mixed with the other, can cause long term degredation of the whole desired reaction, when fully mixed.
It is, therefore, still another object of this invention to provide a two compartment paintball, that by the nature of its construction and assembly procedure, can completely avoid the possibility of the separated chemical agents from leaking or mixing. The structural design completely eliminates dependence on any sealed interface, that would have to be perfect to avoid long term or shelf life problems from even micro leakage. In addition, expensive in-process inspection will not be required with the construction of the invention.
When contemplating the construction of a standard single compartment paintball, which is completely filled with a washable paint, it is obvious that a special filling process must be used to completely fill the capsule while the two hemispheres of the capsule are being joined together; or after they are joined together.
It is, therefore, still another object of this invention, by the completion of two separate sealed hemispheres before the final joining, to greatly simplify the filling and sealing process.
In all paintball designs it is very important to maintain an easily crushable shell. In the case of a divided two compartment capsule, such as required for the luminescent paintball invention, the dividing membranes must be even more easily broken than the outside shell, to assure the proper instant mixing during the process of crushing on impact.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide the means to make the separating membranes of especially thin material, while providing a relatively rigid structure that can impart a high degree of accuracy to the matching hemisphere cross sections, during the loading and sealing of the individual hemispheres.
The simplicity of the design, which provides all of the above mentioned objectives in an easily implemented manufacturing process, will be more clearly revealed in the following drawings, operational description, and appended claims.